Today, I washed my hands at the kitchen sink while making lunch, and was unexpectedly chastised by my partner because she had just started the dishwasher. Apparently, she has recently come across something that has convinced her that running the hot water in your sink means the water that enters your dishwasher will be hotter (checks out), and thus the dishes will be cleaner. I tried searching startpage to see if this is real, but I couldn’t make it through even one llm-slop-ticle about it before my eyes rolled back into my head, so here I am asking y’all: chat, is this real? Doesn’t my dishwasher have a heating element? Is there any meaningful difference between heating the water with a hot water heater vs a dishwasher, other than I can’t use my sink while the dishwasher is filling and I have to pour a bunch of cool water down the drain?
Exactly. UK and European legacy standards required cold water dishwashers; US legacy standards called for hot water dishwashers. Once that expectation took hold, it’s somewhat difficult to alter it. Builders install plumbing for their respective systems; consumers buy appliances to match their plumbing. It’s a vicious circle with little compelling reason to break it. Neither is objectively better; neither is objectively worse.
The overwhelming majority of households had gas-fired water heaters, because for decades, it was significantly cheaper than electric, and those gas-fired systems remain in place in a majority of homes. In that sense, it’s an electric thing.
In the sense that US circuits simply can’t handle the current requirements of a permanently installed heating appliance, that is a complete myth. Trust me, we know how to
wasteuse electricity.